Death of online ads?

As I’m sitting here writing this, grin on my face and all; top right of my Google Chome browser I see the red stop sign with the white hand on it. AdBlock. This is my personal blog, PaperHedge. It’s blocking my own ads.

To be honest, I’ve used it for years. Blocking ads not only on my own blog but pretty much everywhere else I browse. Some sites are so full of ads, that after a quick “pause AdBlock”, the site looks entirely different.

How can it be that something we all hate so much is the very thing that most of us (bloggers, writers, site owners) try make a living from? It’s so ironic moronic that still, whilst getting this far down writing this, I still have AdBlock on, working, and no intention or thought of removing it from my browser.

What a muppet.

This week I decided I was going to turn ads back on after I logged back into AdSense. I saw that I had earned a total of $59.00 this year, meh… Let’s get this number to the threshold of $100 required to withdraw.

I added some text widgets with the AdSense script back onto the site and clicked save. I refreshed my home page only to see the ads not showing.

I went back into the backend to check why the damn things were not showing, AdBlock, d’oh.

I am happy to openly admit that I hate YouTube ads. Heck, I fucking hate all types of online ads. Don’t even get me started on popups and roadblocks… This drives me nuts too.

So how can it be that a thing we hate so much, is the bread and butter of the internet? Google without Advertising would not be where they are today. Bloggers that make a living from ads; this affects them big time too.

Humble beginnings.

I remember a time when I had to redo install Windows on a PC of mine and downloaded AdBlock. It showed a picture of the founder (I think his wife / partner was in it too) asking for donations as this was a labour of love. I did not donate.

Just last week I read that AdBlock was providing “approved ads”. I understood that an investor has come in and obviously helped them monetise a product that could potentially hijack online advertisers and publishers holding them by the short and curlys.

The new “approved ads” from what I get are, ethical ads i.e. “hey advertiser, want us not to block your ads? Please pay here…”. Thus creating a large income source for AdBlock and in one move screw their users over, who in our case, don’t want to see any ads.

If you gonna do it, do it right.

It is my opinion that if one is going to do something, do it right. I’m not going to get into whether or not a move like this could be good or bad for AdBlock, but heck, if I am blocking my own ads, at least block everyone’s.

It cannot only screw bloggers or the small players over if the big boys with the deep pockets can afford to play ball. This is not right.

Now you have a blog or site and your ads are not showing…?

Let’s be totally honest and open with each other cherry pops, our sites look awesome without it. Fact. I kinda like this look. Will it pay my bills, no it wont, but secretly it wasn’t in the first place (on this blog). Does it cost me long term on some other sites where I do rely on income, totally.

Fast forward a little and either no ads show, or somehow AdBlock gets watered down to the point where they have no users. In the worst of the two scenarios, ads don’t show. Now we have a problem.

What do you do then? I read heaps of online comments with supporters for both AdBlock and those against. Some debates get pretty heated and bigoted, essentially showing that folk have strong feelings supporting both sides.

Free web for you, for you and for you too…

Talk of the web staying free (pro removing ads) and those that argue that in order to be free, ads are a big part of this. True.

I added a little link with the title “beer time” to my menu hoping some good folk out there appreciate my blabber enough to shout me a beer (I’d literally go have a beer I promise). Guess what, no beers on anyone… Your newsletter Noam! That’s how you get the ads in… Ahem… no signups.

Ok, sponsored posts, links, affiliate this that etc… no thanks.

I never really had the intention of making dosh out of my blog, rather going for one of those cool looks where you can say, check my personal blog out. On the other hand, on a site I am heavily involved in, our revenue model is purely advertising.

Road blocks, popups and paid subscriptions in my opinion are a no no. I wont be resorting to that. This is where one must get creative.